


Incognito

by lida_sen



Category: Dark Angel (TV), The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Curiosity, Episode: s03e05 The Reckoning, Gen, Max is hiding, Mystic Falls
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-01
Updated: 2018-05-01
Packaged: 2019-04-30 17:50:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14502318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lida_sen/pseuds/lida_sen
Summary: Max hides from Manticore in a picturesque small town called Mystic Falls.





	Incognito

**Author's Note:**

> It's just a fanfic.

Escaping from Manticore is a big decision, but Max never regrets it, even when she lives on the streets of New York to collect enough money to buy an identity. She plans to send herself to an orphanage, with legal papers to throw her pursuers off her trail. Her unit never talked about their chosen names in front of the handlers, so they might search for children with short hair, but Max Addams with her history of foster homes dating back a few years will be above suspicion.  


She is adopted in 2004, at the age of eleven, which catches her by surprise. A couple comes to the orphanage, searching for a girl who looks like them. Max hears when the Pages talk about how the wife, Amanda, needs to have a daughter to advance her career; her company emphasizes the importance of family, and her daughter from her previous marriage lives with his ex-husband.  


Max wouldn’t know how to handle normal parents anyway. At least the husband, Jasper, is a doctor, so she can obtain tryptophan tablets easily.  


* * *

  
When the renamed Maxine Page is fifteen they move to a small town in Virginia because of a blunder her mother makes. The small-town life is terrible after the busy energy and bustle of a big city. Amanda travels a lot and Jasper works shifts in the hospital, so Max is usually alone.  


* * *

  
Max adjusts her fake glasses as the teacher drones on and on about something she has already learnt when she was like six. Hiding as a student with her age group and avoiding early graduation was a good idea. In theory. The boredom will kill her before Manticore will manage to find their precious X5-452.  


She stays away from the popular click, like Elena Gilbert and her friends, and hangs out with the geeks. Less chance for a photo to find its way to Manticore. Glasses, average clothing, better than average grades. If she wants to feel free, she drives her Kawasaki motorcycle she bought after a few questionable transactions.  


The residents of Mystic Falls don’t know the real Max.  


This thought entertains her for about a second when she hears something that awakens her interest. Vampires. Elena and their new classmate, Stefan are having a whispered argument about vampires.  


* * *

  
Max blames the cat DNA in her cocktail for her curiosity, she just hopes it won’t kill her in the end. She trails Elena and Stefan, later Bonnie too when she joins the gang-in-the-know. She collects information just as she was taught, unseen and unheard, although she must be more careful because of the keen vampiric senses.  


She breaks into the Salvatore Boarding House when the vampires are away and obtains same vervain to hide in an accessory and to grow.  


Even knowing that they can keep secrets – there are no people running around on the streets in panic because of the supernatural’s existence – they are just not good enough. She did learn from them, didn’t she?  


Max stays out of the drama, hears the biggest happenings in hushed conversations: there were vampires under the Fell church, and Max needs to avoid the Founder's Day Celebration if she doesn’t want to be killed as a vampire; Elena has a clone (“Hah, who doesn’t!”), Elijah is here, Klaus killed his siblings, Elena dies and is resurrected by her uncle who was her father really, Elena cries that Klaus, her murderer took Stefan away; Elena this, Elena that… everything happens around Elena. Max can’t stay far enough from Elena.  


The summer is calm, Max spends most of her time in neighboring towns partying and living her less fake life. Then autumn and the Senior Prank night comes, and her carefully built life collapses.  


* * *

  
She is ‘forced’ to participate by Caroline, and okay she doesn’t protest much because it promises to be a fun night, and she is assigned to set up pranks in the school gym with a few of her fellow students. They are arranging the fake bodies when Elena is dragged in by a blonde man, who tries to act normally, but his movements show he is a predator.  


He orders them to leave and Max gladly tries to get away, when he recognizes Dana and Chad and compels them to stay. On a whim he tries to compel Max too, so she fakes obedience. This must be the famous Klaus.  


She is ordered to stand on one leg (which she could do for hours) with Dana, and Chad is compelled to beat them to death if they put their other leg down. Then Tyler comes and Tyler dies.  


* * *

  
Stefan comes into the gym, and Klaus orders him to kill the three of them, so Max changes her position slightly to stand before Dana and Chad as Stefan tries to resist the order.  


“Now kill them, Ripper” comes the command from Klaus.  


Max anticipates the attacking vampire’s movement and breaks his neck when he is in front of her. The silence is deafening as Klaus looks at her with curious eyes.  


“What do we have here? Not a vampire and not a werewolf. Definitely not a hunter.”  


“Wouldn’t you like to know?” asks Max cheekily before blurring behind him and snapping his neck too. She knows it was only the unexpectedness and Klaus’ arrogance that let her succeed, although their speed matches.  


Max injects Stefan and Klaus with a big dose of vervain she never leaves home without (Hey, it’s Mystic Falls!); and sends the momentarily compulsion-free Dana and Chad away.  


It’s time to leave this town. All Max needs is money – she snitches Klaus’ wallet – and leverage to stay alive. Now… Where does Klaus keep his daggered siblings?  


(They are right outside in a truck. How convenient.)

**Author's Note:**

> I could not decide between thirteen or seventeen/eighteen years old Max, so in the end I wrote two fics :)


End file.
